The Challenge to Religious Liberty in Indonesia

Key Points

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslimmajority
nation and third-largest democracy,
has a proud tradition of religious tolerance
and is a remarkable story of constitutional
democratic achievement. Islamic activists
have played an important role in encouraging
participation in public policymaking and promoting
government accountability.

Indonesia’s transition to democracy has also
been marked by powerful Islamic groups’
attempts to dominate the legislative process,
control citizens’ private lives, and diminish
the rights of minorities.

Islamist militias have systematically harassed
religious minorities, closed down their places
of worship, and tried to enforce sharia law at
local levels.

The Indonesia that President Obama knew as a
child, with its tradition of pluralism and constitutional
protections for religious freedom, provides
the world with an important model of
religious diversity. It is not a “Muslim country.”

The Obama Administration should do all it
can to support that tradition.

Key Points

Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslimmajority
nation and third-largest democracy,
has a proud tradition of religious tolerance
and is a remarkable story of constitutional
democratic achievement. Islamic activists
have played an important role in encouraging
participation in public policymaking and promoting
government accountability.

Indonesia’s transition to democracy has also
been marked by powerful Islamic groups’
attempts to dominate the legislative process,
control citizens’ private lives, and diminish
the rights of minorities.

Islamist militias have systematically harassed
religious minorities, closed down their places
of worship, and tried to enforce sharia law at
local levels.

The Indonesia that President Obama knew as a
child, with its tradition of pluralism and constitutional
protections for religious freedom, provides
the world with an important model of
religious diversity. It is not a “Muslim country.”

The Obama Administration should do all it
can to support that tradition.

About the Author

The widespread growth of faith-based social movements over the
past two decades has convinced many observers of the significance
of religious activism as a driving force behind social change in
many parts of the globe. This is certainly the case in Indonesia--
the world's most populous Muslim-majority nation and, since 1999,
its third-largest democracy. Indonesian Islamic activists have
recently received considerable attention from development
organizations for encouraging participation in public policymaking,
promoting government accountability, and otherwise contributing to
democratic reform.[1]

At the same time, however, the country's transition to democracy
has been marked by the emergence of powerful Islamic interest
groups aiming to dominate the legislative process, exert strict
control over Muslims' private lives, and diminish the rights of
minorities. As the government has been inconsistent in upholding
constitutional guarantees of religious freedom, it remains unclear
whether Indonesia's democratization process will continue to lead
toward greater liberty for its citizens, or whether it will
encourage forms of Islamic integralism that reject pluralism and
ultimately deny individual rights.

Since roughly 86 percent of Indonesia's 240 million people
identify themselves at least nominally as Muslim--approximating
nearly two-thirds of the Muslim population of the entire Arab
League--it is not surprising that Islam has proved to be one of the
most potent sociopolitical forces influencing public opinion and
affecting the actions of the political elite. Politicians and
activist groups have frequently explained their ideas in Islamic
terms, employed Islamic symbols, and made appeals to the public in
the name of their religion. Nevertheless, as evidenced by the
raucous debate over the position of Islam in Indonesian society
that has persisted since the reform period began in 1998, deep
divisions remain over the cultural identity of the nation as well
as the nature of the Indonesian state.

Within Islamic circles, two overlapping social movements have
vied ardently for dominance since the reform period began. The
first of these movements has called for the establishment of a
pluralistic democracy based on tolerance, social justice, and a
strong civil society. The other movement has promoted Islam as a
political ideology aiming for sectarian control of the state--a
phenomenon referred to as Islamism.[2] Emphasizing moral reform,
Islamists advocate the complete Islamization of Indonesian society
through the imposition of Islamic law (sharia) on the
nation's immense Muslim population as well as the establishment of
Saudi-style social norms for the rest of the country.

The principal goal of this paper is to assess the Indonesian
government's performance in protecting basic rights and freedoms as
it faces a determined and multi-pronged effort to impose
religiously inspired restrictions on the population. It is also
intended to inform debate on U.S. policy toward Indonesia as the
Obama Administration begins to work out a new platform for
relations with countries where Islam is a cogent political
force.

A Successful State

Indonesia has accomplished what was once considered an
improbable feat: In less than a decade, the world's largest
Muslim-majority nation has freed itself from authoritarian rule and
established a representative democracy that appears to be
remarkably stable. With the momentum of a popular reform movement
driving progress, the state has sustained its commitment to
democracy through two national elections. It has recently begun its
third election cycle with national legislative polls held on April
9, 2009, and the presidential election scheduled for July 8,
2009.

The recent legislative election stands out as the first in which
voters chose individual legislators within a party slate rather
than merely selecting a political party. The state has also begun
to institute direct elections for provincial, district, and
municipal level heads since 2005, effectively establishing one of
the largest systems of democratic representation in the world.

This enthusiasm for making government directly accountable to
voters demonstrates what Indonesia's progressive Muslim
intellectuals have long argued: The foundations of a pluralistic
democracy can indeed be located within a Muslim social sphere. The
student-led reform movement that succeeded in driving former
President Suharto from power and launching the nation on its path
to democracy in 1998 was largely a secular movement that reflected
the inherent diversity of Indonesian society. While some
organizations involved in the effort employed Islamic symbols,
framed their demands in Islamic terms, and emphasized issues of
concern to Muslim groups, they represented only one segment of
Indonesia's myriad cultural and social streams. The power of the
movement was in its ability to bring these various streams
together. By transcending religious, ethnic, and ideological
differences, reform leaders succeeded in establishing a united
front that helped to forge national consensus on the imperative of
democratic reform.

Although the concept of democracy was poorly understood by most
citizens at the outset of the reform period, discourse on liberal
thought had been nurtured quietly in lecture halls and study clubs
for years. By the early 1990s, democracy activists had established
legal aid groups, journalist organizations, and a variety of
non-governmental organizations committed to strengthening the
position of civil society vis-à-vis the government.[3] These
activists and other members of the academic community combined with
leaders of the nation's most influential Muslim civil society
organizations to create a broad coalition for reform.

During this same period, Indonesia's Islamic intellectual
community made serious efforts to bridge theories of liberalism and
traditions of Islamic thought. The impact of this project was
nowhere more apparent than within the nation's vast public Islamic
higher-education sector that promoted modernizing trends within
Islamic circles nationwide.[4] The Ministry of Religious Affairs, which is
responsible for the administration of the sector, provided advanced
study opportunities for religious scholars that were designed to
increase the integration of Islamic intellectualism with national
intellectualism.[5] The idea held by many of the top
educational leaders at the time was that training religious
scholars in the same manner as economists, sociologists, and
political scientists would lead to greater cohesion between
religion and the state.

Ironically, when Suharto's "New Order" regime began to teeter as
a result of the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and 1998, cohesion
among secular and religious intellectuals was evidenced by their
shared opposition to the authoritarian state. The mobilization of
Islamic student organizations alongside secular groups in
demonstrations against the Suharto regime served as a powerful
symbol of the unity of Indonesia's youth. Moreover, the
enthusiastic participation of students from Islamic colleges and
universities within secular student groups underscored the
inherent plurality of the movement's most active protest
organizations. Most important, the leadership role played by
Islamic intellectuals in explaining concepts of democracy to the
Muslim community proved pivotal in determining the ultimate
compatibility of Islam and democracy in Indonesian society.

The results of Indonesia's broad consensus on democratization
are clear. As the younger generation stepped forward to provide
critical leadership for the country's resurgent civil society
institutions, existing legislators were forced to accept press
freedoms, recognize political liberties, and implement plans for
free elections. Successive governments were pressured to build on
these achievements by reforming the electoral system,
decentralizing the state budget, and institutionalizing democratic
decision-making at all levels of governance.

While Indonesia's transition from authoritarian rule to
democratic government has at times been chaotic, survey data
suggest steady if not rising levels of public support for
democratization. The Indonesian Survey Institute found a gradual
increase in respondents--from 68 percent in 1999 to 74 percent in
2006--who agreed that democracy is the best political system for
the country. Satisfaction with government bodies and even political
parties likewise also appeared to increase after Indonesia's 2004
election.[6]

Nevertheless, in spite of apparent public support for
democratization, several countervailing trends have also been noted
in other public opinion polls. In 2008, 40 percent of survey
respondents told the Indonesian Survey Circle that conditions are
worse since the reform period began, as opposed to just 33 percent
who said that conditions are better. Fifty-eight percent also
selected Suharto's authoritarian period as the best time in which
to live. When asked what was better during the Suharto era,
respondents emphasized three issues: the economy, security, and
social conditions. Taken in sum, these findings suggest that while
the public generally appreciates the freedoms associated with
democracy, progress in Indonesia has been marred by financial
turmoil, a sense of insecurity, and serious problems affecting
social cohesion.

Illiberal Leanings

In its 2008 annual report on belief and religious pluralism,
Tracing the Footsteps of an Increasingly Divided Nation, the
Jakarta-based Wahid Institute identifies the government's failure
to protect religious freedom as one of the foremost problems
affecting social cohesion in Indonesia. The organization argues
that the "emergence of an overly enthusiastic religious identity
and the tendency for some social groups to evict others who hold
different religious interpretations or views, as well as the lack
of law enforcement from the government," has perpetuated a
situation in which cases of civil rights violations, violence, and
conflict cannot be resolved.[7]

The Wahid Institute documents 55 separate cases of religious
violence and intimidation in 2008. Six of the cases occurred during
the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan when, as in years past, an
Islamist militia group known as the Islamic Defenders Front
allegedly raided restaurants and nightclubs suspected of serving
alcoholic beverages or allowing other activities deemed improper by
the group during the fasting month. While these incidents can be
considered minor forms of intimidation involving vandalism of
private property and threats against bar patrons, it is important
to note the Islamic Defenders Front's role. Having started a decade
ago with these kinds of raids targeting impiety--and having
encountered very little government resistance--it is not surprising
that by 2008, the group was believed to have been involved in more
than half of the religious violence across the country. Moreover,
it has moved on to increasingly serious crimes.[8]

Some of the most troubling instances of religious violence
involve the harassment of religious minorities and the forcible
closure of their places of worship. For the past several years,
Islamist militia groups have waged a systematic campaign against
minority Muslim groups whose interpretation of Islam differs from
the Sunni orthodoxy favored by militant ideologues. A few of the
raids targeted Indonesia's tiny Shia community. The bulk of the
attacks, however, were directed at members of the Ahmadiyah
movement, who differ from the majority of Muslims in their belief
that the prophet Mohammed was not the last to speak the word of God
on Earth.

After a century of peaceful coexistence on Indonesian soil,
violence against the Ahmadiyah began in July 2005 after the
Indonesian Ulema Council issued a fatwa, or religious opinion,
condemning the group for teaching what it considers to be a deviant
form of Islam. Groups affiliated with the Islamic Defenders Front
responded to the fatwa by staging a series of attacks on Ahmadiyah
facilities in West Java. Numerous Ahmadiyah mosques were destroyed,
and the congregation's headquarters near the city of Bogor was
eventually razed after several attacks.

One of the most troubling aspects of these crimes is that local
authorities did little to prevent the attacks and failed to
prosecute those responsible. They instead responded by blaming the
Ahmadiyah for "provoking" conflict and banning Ahmadiyah practices
in the province of West Java. Since the national government largely
ignored the matter, it is not surprising that similar attacks were
subsequently staged on Ahmadiyah communities in other parts of
Indonesia.[9]

Militant Islamist organizations broadened their activities in
2008 by targeting civil society groups working to protect the
rights of religious minorities. The most high-profile incident
occurred on June 1 when organizations involved in the National
Alliance for Religious Freedom and Conviction (AKKBB) staged a
rally at Indonesia's National Monument in Central Jakarta in
commemoration of Pancasila Day, a national holiday. The event was
held to celebrate the establishment of Indonesia's national
ideology, which consists of belief in God, a just and civilized
humanity, national unity, democracy through deliberation, and
social justice.

AKKBB members also intended to use the opportunity to highlight
the plight of the Ahmadiyah and other religious minorities whose
constitutional rights had been violated both by Islamist militia
groups and by the local governments that had banned their
activities. AKKBB members explained that they felt it was time for
the national government to step in and uphold constitutional
guarantees of religious freedom.

In blatant disregard for national law, the Islamic Defenders
Front staged a violent assault on the AKKBB rally soon after it
began. Dozens were injured as the supporters of interreligious
tolerance found themselves the target of violence. Yet far more
distressing than the incident itself was the manner in which the
Indonesian government responded.

Following the precedent set by the local governments of West
Java and Lombok, President Yudhoyono's minister of religious
affairs, the attorney general, and the minister of the interior
issued a "joint decree" days after the attack on the AKKBB that
formally condemned the Ahmadiyah for promoting an interpretation of
Islam that is "deviant from the principal teachings of the said
religion." The Ahmadiyah were explicitly "warned and ordered" that
"as long as they consider themselves to hold to Islam, to
discontinue the promulgation of interpretations and activities that
are deviant from the principal teachings of Islam, that is to say
the promulgation of beliefs that recognize a prophet with all his
teachings who comes after the Prophet Muhammad SAW."[10]

The document is astonishing by opening with the proclamation
that "the right to freedom of religion is a human right that cannot
be diminished under any circumstances; that every person has the
freedom to hold their religion and to worship according to their
religion and faith." In the next sentence, however, the idea of
religious freedom is severely limited to mere adherence to the
particular interpretation of a religion that is sanctioned by the
state.

Oddly, the decree also orders the Ahmadiyah to discontinue the
teaching of their beliefs as long as adherents insist on
considering themselves followers of Islam. This position echoes the
sentiments of Ulema Council leaders who argued that the entire
problem could be avoided if the Ahmadiyah would simply form their
own religion and stopped calling themselves Muslims. Such a
suggestion is absurd given the fact that the Indonesian government
restricts the freedom of its citizens to adhere to any religion
other than Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Catholicism, Christianity, or
Confucianism. Until the legal framework for belief is changed,
Ahmadiyah followers have no choice but to explain their religiosity
within the context of one of these state-sanctioned creeds.

Although three Islamist militia leaders were eventually
prosecuted for their roles in the AKKBB attack, the decree against
the Ahmadiyah was a great victory for Islamists. This was made
clear when one of the main instigators of the violence went into
hiding and refused to give himself up until such a decree was
issued. The government complied, made no attempt to punish him for
the additional crime of resisting arrest, and declined to
adjudicate those who had assisted him in his flight from justice.
The fate of the Ahmadiyah is a high-profile case study in religious
oppression.

Islamist influence directly affects other religious minorities
as well, such as Indonesia's approximately 20 million Christians.
It is exceedingly difficult to obtain the necessary permits to
build a church in many parts of Indonesia despite changes made in
2006 to make the regulations more explicit. Even when all the
requirements have been fulfilled, Christians often cannot gain
final approval for the construction of houses of worship. Many
churches and prayer halls have also been subject to vandalism, and
their congregations face various forms of intimidation. Every year,
the U.S. State Department documents the forced closure of churches
by extremist groups. Twelve are identified in its 2008 report, and
34 are identified in its 2006 report.[11]

Of the 367 violations of religious freedom occurring in 265
separate incidents as documented by the SETARA Institute in 2008,
only three people were prosecuted.[12] This fact illustrates why
the Wahid Institute and many other civil society organizations view
the Yudhoyono administration's failure to ensure proper law
enforcement as the main reason for the perpetuation of violence
against minorities. The problem that Indonesians face is apparent
from the campaign rhetoric of some of the president's most
formidable political opponents, who are calling for leadership that
is tegas--clear, firm, and resolute--in handling all forms
of violence and social unrest.

Legal Framework

Debates over religious liberties in Indonesia inevitably lead
back to the nation's perennially contested 1945 constitution. The
leaders of the country's independence struggle issued a provisional
constitution on August 18, 1945, just 24 hours after they had
declared independence. Although it was drafted during a period of
chaos and uncertainty, the document made clear the new republic's
commitment to basic rights and freedoms, including freedom of
religion. While it declares that the state is based on, among other
things, "the belief in the One and Only God," it also guarantees
"each and every citizen the freedom of religion and of worship in
accordance with his or her religion and belief."[13]

Several alternative conceptions of the Indonesian state were
proposed during the independence period. Groups determined to live
in an Islamic state pushed for the inclusion of wording in the
constitution that would obligate Muslims to live according to
Islamic law. Marxists strove to emphasize economic rights. In fact,
when the short-lived constitution of 1950 was promulgated, it
contained the vague assertion that "the right to property is a
social function," an idea intended to pave the way for land
reform.

Efforts were made to appease these powerful interest groups. As
the final form of the constitution was debated, an advisory
committee composed of Muslim leaders recommended the inclusion of
seven words in the preamble of the 1945 constitution that would
have obliged Muslims to abide by sharia law. Known as the
Jakarta Charter, the idea was considered but never included in the
constitution. Instead, Indonesia's founders decided that reference
to "Belief in One God" was sufficient to acknowledge the role of
faith within Indonesia's diverse society. To this day, however,
Islamist groups demand the "return" of the Jakarta Charter and have
attempted, albeit unsuccessfully, to add it to the constitution by
amendment.

In spite of controversy, the 1945 constitution remains clear on
the issue of religious freedom, and it has been further
strengthened in recent years. The Second Amendment, Article 28E,
added on August 18, 2000, explicitly guarantees that "Every person
shall be free to embrace and to practice the religion of his/her
choice"; that "Every person shall have the right to the freedom to
hold beliefs (kepercayaan), and to express his/her views and
thoughts, in accordance with his/her conscience"; and that "Every
person shall have the right of freedom to associate, to assemble
and to express opinions." Article 28I, as amended on November 9,
2001, and again on August 11, 2002, goes on to assert that freedom
of thought and conscience, as well as freedom of religion, are
"human rights that cannot be limited under any circumstances."[14]

Regrettably, four decades of authoritarian rule under which
constitutional rights were patently ignored has caused many
Indonesians to regard the constitution as "mere ink on paper."[15]
Islamists have seized on this vacuum by insisting on the
implementation of scores of new local religious laws that clearly
violate some of the rights and freedoms protected in the
constitution.[16]

Political Realities

The 2009 national election cycle, which began in April and will
conclude with the presidential election in July, as well as a
second round in September if necessary, provides significant
insight into Indonesian preferences regarding political Islam. The
emerging picture as election results are finalized is that
Indonesians are largely satisfied with the non-sectarian government
of incumbent President Yudhoyono. His Democrat Party has won nearly
21 percent of the vote, the highest of the nine parties that
crossed the 2.5 percent minimum vote threshold and are thus
eligible to claim seats in the legislature. Opinion polls also
place Yudhoyono as the undisputed favorite in the presidential race
by a margin of at least 35 percentage points.

In second place in the legislative race is the Golkar Party,
which gained its electoral expertise as the party in power
throughout the years of Suharto's authoritarian rule. With 14.45
percent of the vote, Golkar just managed to edge out former
President Sukarnoputri's Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle,
which came in a close third with 14.03 percent. The top three
winning parties thus are all of secular nationalist orientation. No
other party made it beyond single digits in the legislative
race.

The other side of the story is that Islamist political parties
have suffered significant decline in the 2009 legislative election,
earning only 16 percent of the vote this year compared to 20
percent in 2004. Although the conservative Justice and Prosperity
Party gained a half of a percentage point with 7.88 percent of the
vote, it fell far shy of its widely publicized 20 percent
target.

The other sizable Islamist party, the United Development Party,
suffered a decline of nearly three percentage points as it sank to
an all-time low of 5.32 percent. Some of the smaller Islamist
parties, including the ultra-conservative Crescent Star Party,
appear poised to pass into oblivion. Their failure to secure the
minimum percentage of votes means they will have no voice in the
coming legislature and will not be eligible to contest the next
election in 2014.

Support for all Islamic parties combined (Islamist and
non-Islamist) declined by more than 10 percent. Part of the reason
for the failure of Islamism at the ballot box was the fragmentation
that many of the parties experienced. Intraparty political feuds
have resulted in numerous schisms in recent years. Nevertheless,
the outcome suggests that Indonesians have become more pragmatic in
their approach to politics.

In the nation's first democratic election, in 1955, four
distinct political factions emerged with nationalists, communists,
Islamic modernists, and Islamic traditionalists each earning a
significant share of the vote. The ideological differences between
these groups fueled the divisive politics that led to the tragic
intercommunal violence of 1965 and subsequently served as the
justification for Suharto's imposition of authoritarian rule.

The results of the 2009 election, on the other hand, suggest
that the political potency of religion and ideology has lessened
considerably. The top three parties--the Democrat Party, Golkar,
and Democratic Party of Struggle--each declare allegiance to
Indonesia's official ideology of Pancasila. While individual party
branches may occasionally venture into religious politicking, each
of the top parties emphasizes a nationalist orientation and largely
avoids the explicit use of religious symbols.

The new constellation of political power emerging today thus
stands in sharp contrast to those forces that have promoted
intolerance and violence against religious minorities. This
distinction was obvious in the final days of the most recent
election campaign when party leaders from the United Development
Party and the Crescent Star Party made incendiary speeches calling
on the government to ban the sheer existence of Ahmadiyah (in
addition to the current ban on Ahmadiyah activities).[17]

The results of the April 2009 legislative election clearly show
what the Indonesian public thinks of parties that employ
discriminatory rhetoric. It is now up to the victors to reduce the
influence of Islamist lobbies in state policymaking at the
national, district, and municipal levels and thus limit the impact
of religious extremism on social cohesion.

Interreligious Strife and Social
Cohesion

Indonesia's great popular consensus on democratic governance and
civilian rule was severely challenged by the eruption of
interreligious strife in parts of eastern Indonesia between 1999
and 2003. Intercommunal violence in the provinces of Maluku, North
Maluku, and Central Sulawesi resulted in the deaths of more than
20,000 people and the displacement of more than a million in that
same period. What began as a local conflict between Christian and
Muslim groups was exacerbated by the involvement of security
forces--some of which became active participants in the
conflict--as well as the influx of militia groups from other
provinces.

As hundreds of thousands of refugees poured out of the conflict
zones, Islamic civil society groups in other parts of the country
were split over how to respond. Many Muslim groups began to
concentrate on providing aid for internally displaced persons. In
the wake of government inability to solve the conflict, however,
others began to reconsider the very idea of democratic pluralism.
Swayed by evidence of atrocities carried out by nominally
"Christian" militia groups in Eastern Indonesia, some Islamic civil
society organizations turned to Islamist paramilitary groups that
were eager to intervene in the conflict. As a result, solidarity on
reform issues suffered considerably, resulting in confusion within
the ranks of democracy activists. Similarly, the failure of some
religious organizations on both sides of the conflict to condemn
the excessive violence carried out by their followers called into
question the depth of some activists' commitment to pluralism.

The conflicts were eventually settled as a result of the Malino
Peace Accords brokered by Jusuf Kalla, the nation's current vice
president, in December 2001 (for Central Sulawesi) and February
2002 (for Maluku). But Indonesians have continued to suffer the
conflict's legacy for years as the Islamist militia groups that
came to prominence during the conflict have extended their
influence over the nation's young democracy.

In an effort to assess the impact and methods of Islamist
influence, a consortium of some of Indonesia's most prominent
Islamic leaders, in collaboration with the LibForAll Foundation,
recently released a report titled "The Illusion of an Islamic
State: The Expansion of Transnational Islamist Movements to
Indonesia." The group argues that the extremist form of Islam in
Indonesia is "a virulent ideology, backed by immense funding, and
operating in a systematic manner, as transnational Islamic
movements and their local agents work nonstop to undermine and
ultimately seize control" of the nation.[18] The group also asserts
that the spread of this ideology is linked to the global
Wahhabi/Muslim Brotherhood movement and backed by significant
funding from the Middle East. As a result, Indonesian media have
been flooded with books and articles outlining various conspiracies
against Islam and calling on Muslims to reject "Western" ideas of
civil society and democratic reform.

At the same time, however, Indonesia's progressive Islamic
community has played a vital role in encouraging the development of
a nationwide network of religious activists who are committed to
promoting mutual understanding and respect between faith
communities. In particular, educators associated with the nation's
vast public Islamic higher-education system have made restoring
interreligious relations a major goal. Through the development of a
series of formal courses on democratic citizenship and various
supporting curricular initiatives, Islamic educators and affiliated
activist groups have been striving to promote a concept of
citizenship that emphasizes the inherent plurality and
inclusiveness of Indonesian society.[19] A rich discourse on the
compatibility of Islam and democratic pluralism has thus evolved
that is having a considerable impact across the country.

What can be concluded from these countervailing trends?

First, Indonesia's experience with democratic reform
demonstrates that there is a high level of social-movement activity
of various kinds within Islamic circles. In general, this suggests
that hitherto marginalized groups have broadened their involvement
in civil society networks. While this is an important sign of
increased participation in the democratic process, an upsurge in
activism should not be confused with greater levels of freedom.

Second, while Muslim activists were greatly concerned
with the consolidation of rights and freedoms at the twilight of
authoritarianism, new activist groups have recently formed in
opposition to some of these hard-won liberties. This trend toward
anti-liberal activism displays itself in the rise of professional
activist groups that focus not on public awareness, but on
political lobbying. It is clear that the greatest threats to civil
liberty in Indonesia today are not those voices that rise from
within civil society itself, but those that issue from the ranks of
professional Islamist lobbyists who seek undue influence in
policymaking.

Third, and most important, President Yudhoyono has thus
far been unwilling or unable to accept the full responsibility of
national leadership for protecting the rights of religious
minorities. Many Indonesians voted for the current government
precisely because of its promise to restore order. Yudhoyono's
unwillingness to fully claim that mandate and assume the authority
of democratic leadership has been the great shortcoming of the
post-authoritarian period.

This is not to say that President Yudhoyono has failed to
address serious issues of terrorism. On the contrary, he has worked
hard to end terrorist operations on Indonesian soil and has done
much to convince Muslims of the illegitimacy of violence against
civilians. Nevertheless, the hard-won freedoms of belief and
association that Indonesian student groups fought for in the
decade-long Reformasi movement are now repeatedly violated
by the Islamist interest groups that the Yudhoyono administration
has occasionally validated with political respectability and power.
The rising influence of the increasingly hard-line
quasi-governmental Indonesia Ulema Council is a case in point.

U.S.Policy

The fight against extremism in Indonesia is one for Indonesians
to fight, but they could benefit greatly from American
encouragement and support.

First, the Obama Administration should urge the
Indonesian government to rein in Islamist militias responsible for
the bulk of religious violence and intimidation. This can be
accomplished only through proactive leadership by the executive
branch of government, which must ensure that security forces
protect the rights of all Indonesian citizens. Training in
nonviolent crowd-control measures should be facilitated to help
security personnel prepare for confrontations with religious
extremists, and the law enforcement community should be assisted in
developing better strategies to respond to the instigators of
intimation and violence.

Second, the Obama Administration should encourage
Indonesia to develop a tighter legal framework to address the
proliferation of regional laws that violate religious liberties.
Whoever becomes the next president of Indonesia should demonstrate
clear leadership in establishing a legislative review system at the
national level through which the regional laws that violate
constitutional guarantees of religious freedom can be repealed.

In 2006, 56 national legislators petitioned President Yudhoyono
to revoke sharia-inspired laws on the grounds that they
violated both the constitution and the spirit of Pancasila. A
consortium of Islamic parties successfully opposed the move,
claiming that such laws were effective in promoting morality. With
the decline of the Islamist parties and new political arrangements
forming in the legislature, it is time to reconsider how regional
bylaws are to be addressed nationally. The international community
should remind Indonesia that prostitution and other vices can be
controlled by means other than blanket restrictions on the freedoms
of citizens in general and women in particular.

Third, Indonesia's higher-education sector is one of the
most important sources of controversy with respect to civil society
issues. Public Islamic universities have played an important role
in facilitating debate on issues affecting social cohesion over the
past decade.

The Indonesian government should encourage more institutions of
higher learning and affiliated civil society organizations to
address these topics. Such debates should be highly participatory,
transparent, and inclusive of numerous segments of society.
Vigorous public information campaigns should also be carried out to
promote a deeper understanding of the role of the university in
facilitating dialogue. The goal of this effort should be to educate
the public about norms of behavior for holding debate as well as
the dangers of attempting to stifle free discourse. The Obama
Administration can share its ideas for reaching this goal.

Fourth, the U.S. should help Indonesia establish
international linkages involving Islamic colleges and universities
to promote mutual understanding, high standards of academic
freedom, and the development of relationships that transcend both
religious distinctions and national boundaries. Indonesia has
recognized the value of internationalization to economic
competitiveness. The U.S. should encourage the Indonesian
government to see the value in areas of study that are central to
the preservation of its pluralist traditions.

Fifth, the U.S. should incorporate into its policy
objectives the issues prioritized by the Commission on
International Religious Freedom, including "protection for
religious venues, as well as restitution to religious communities
whose venues have been destroyed or closed"; "withdrawing the draft
joint decree...banning Ahmadiyah"; and "amend[ing] the Joint
Ministerial Decree No. 1/2006 (Regulation on Building Houses of
Worship) to bring it into compliance with the Indonesian
constitution's protection of religious freedom."[20]

Talking to Indonesians about these issues is not easy. Indonesia
is their country, and they are proud of their hard-fought
sovereignty. But American officials should bear in mind that they
are only calling Indonesia to its own inheritance. These issues can
be addressed without appeal to American standards, but instead by
appeal to Pancasila, the Indonesian constitution, the concept of
the Unitary State of Indonesia (NKRI), its national motto "Unity in
Diversity," its religious and cultural traditions, and its
massively influential civil society associations. These are things
that reflect values that Americans share with Indonesians.

Islamist extremists are actively opposed to the foundations of
the Indonesian state and, by extension, to the values they
enshrine. When Americans speak in favor of them, by implication,
they speak against the extremists. American officials should also
consider that there are a great many brave Indonesians ready and
willing to take on these issues. There are other parts of the body
politic, some of the most concerned and vulnerable, who are holding
their tongues. Without U.S. support, both groups can feel
isolated.

Words Matter in Foreign Policy

In a speech at a U.S.-Indonesia Society luncheon in Washington,
D.C., on November 14, 2008, Yudhoyono commented that because of his
life, personal experience, and heritage, U.S. President Barack
Obama commands an appeal that can "cut across cultures, race and
religion" on the international stage.[21] One can thus expect that
President Obama's relationship with Yudhoyono may have an impact on
whether or not the Indonesian government will live up to its
constitutional duty of guaranteeing religious freedom for all
Indonesians.

For his part, President Obama has repeatedly declared his
intentions to forge better relations with Muslim-majority nations
around the globe. He seeks to reach Muslims directly through public
diplomacy and has demonstrated a serious interest in broadening
dialogue with Muslim leaders. Regrettably, the President's choice
of words in describing his otherwise laudable plans to engage
Muslim populations is problematic for Indonesians. In his first
interview as President, conducted with Al Arabiya television news
on January 27, 2009, President Obama reminded viewers that he has
lived in "Muslim countries"--specifically in Indonesia, which he
describes as the largest country in the "Muslim world."[22]

Having attended primary school in Indonesia, President Obama
need not be reminded that Indonesia does not officially call itself
a "Muslim country." Rather, the Republic of Indonesia comprises a
religiously diverse nation based on the principles of Pancasila,
which includes belief in God, a just and civilized humanity,
national unity, democracy through deliberation, and social
justice.

It is true that Indonesia is home to the world's largest
population of Muslims, with some 206 million of its 240 million
citizens describing themselves as followers of Islam. But unlike
some countries in the Middle East and South Asia where the
followers of other religions have been almost completely driven
out, Indonesia remains home to millions of Christians, Hindus,
Buddhists, and adherents of other faiths. President Obama's
reference to their homeland as a "Muslim country" is a
disappointment to these minorities, who have seen their nation's
tradition of tolerance come under attack from religious extremists.
It also ignores the efforts of countless Muslims who have struggled
to maintain Indonesia's non-sectarian orientation.

Conclusion

The Indonesia that President Obama knew as a child, with its
culture of pluralism and constitutional protections for religious
freedom, provides the world with an important model of religious
diversity. His Administration should act quickly to support that
tradition. It can begin by sharply curtailing the use of rhetoric
that carelessly describes diverse regions based on the faith of
dominant groups.

Islamist propaganda aside, the fact of the matter is that very
few of the world's Muslims live in societies that can neatly be
labeled "the Muslim world." The Palestinians and the Israelis may
need a two-state solution to overcome their trauma. One must hope
that President Obama and other world leaders will be more creative
in forging an international relations paradigm that will help to
transcend the dichotomies based on religion that fuel so many
ongoing conflicts.

Richard Kraince is Research Professor of Southeast
Asian Humanities at the College of Mexico in Mexico City.

[4]Robert W. Hefner, "Islamic Schools, Social
Movements, and Democracy in Indonesia," in Robert W. Hefner, ed.,
Making Modern Muslims: The Politics of Islamic Education in
Southeast Asia (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press,
2009).

[7]Annual Report on Religious Pluralism in
Indonesia: Tracing the Footsteps of an Increasingly Divided
Nation, Jakarta, The Wahid Institute, 2008.

[8]Laporan Tahunan Pluralisme
Beragama/Berkeyakinan di Indonesia: Menapaki Bangsa yan Kian
Retak, Jakarta, The Wahid Institute, 2008. This is the
Indonesian-language version of the report cited in note 7 and
contains additional information that is not included in the
English-language version.

[9]This
author personally interviewed several Ahmadiyah members in Bali in
March 2006 soon after they had fled attacks on their home island of
Lombok in the province of West Nusa Tenggara. The individuals that
I spoke with described an organized effort to evict them from their
communities, beginning with the distribution of flyers that
demanded they recant their beliefs and ending in mob raids on their
residences. According to the U.S. Commission on International
Religious Freedom, no arrests were made in the Lombok incidents
even though the homes of scores of Ahmadiyah followers were
destroyed by organized mobs in broad daylight. Moreover, local
government bodies in Lombok followed the precedent set in West Java
by issuing a ban on Ahmadiyah activities. Several other cases of
intimidation and violence against the Ahmadiyah occurred in
Jakarta, West Sumatra, and again in several parts of West Java in
2007. See "Indonesia," in United States Commission on International
Religious Freedom, Annual Report 2008, at http://www.uscirf.gov/images/AR2008/
indonesiaar2008_full%20color.pdf (May 21, 2009).

[11]U.S. Department of State, Report on
International Religious Freedom, 2006 and 2008, at http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/irf (May 21,
2009). See also "Indonesia," in United States Commission on
International Religious Freedom, Annual Report 2008.

[16]Looking closely at the implementation of
sharia-related bylaws instituted at district and municipal
levels across the country, University of Washington-trained
political scientist Robin Bush reported in 2008 that there were no
fewer than 78 new laws that may be considered to be of religious
origin in 52 of Indonesia's 470 districts. Bush provides an
overview of this trend by parsing the laws into categories. Some
are explained as general morality regulations intended to limit
alcohol consumption, gambling, prostitution, and other vices.
Others relate to religious symbols, such as the mandatory wearing
of "Islamic" garb on Muslim holy days in some districts. Other laws
formalize Islamic practices, such as the institutionalization of
alms (zakat) collection by local governments or the
establishment of Islamic Education requirements in schools. Bush
correctly explains that the phenomenon is "linked to the devolution
of legislative authority to the districts/municipalities and
provinces as part of the overall process of decentralization in
Indonesia." She also notes that while some of these
sharia-related regulations curtail democratic freedoms,
others may simply reflect aspirations to express local culture.
Most important, Bush notes that while the number of new regulations
surged to 23 in 2003, only five were recorded in 2006, and no new
regulations were recorded in 2007. She thus argues that efforts to
formalize sharia within the legal system appear to be waning
as the emphasis of local politics shifts away from symbolic
regulations and toward good governance practices. Robin Bush,
"Regional Sharia Regulations in Indonesia: Anomaly or Symptom?" in
Greg Fealy and Sally White, eds., Expressing Islam: Religious
Life and Politics in Indonesia (Singapore: Institute of
Southeast Asian Studies, 2008), pp. 174-191.